Kathleen Akerley's Night Falls on the Blue Planet is a rapturously funny and brainy comedy about a woman named Renee who is losing her mind and finding her body. (Or something like that. It'…
Who gets to say what in the theater has become an increasingly pressing question. Of course the question has been pressing for a long time; it's just now getting paid significant attention b…
Last season The Keegan Theatre mounted a Vietnam War"era musical called Hair. In a column I described that production as "radiant and thrilling," "an exuberant love fest as timeless as hu…
Twice a week in this land of the free, a white police officer kills a black person"this according to under-reported stats from the FBI. From the official law-enforcement point of view, these…
Scena Theatre has brought back its hit 2011 production of The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde's classic comedy of errors, and DC's summer just got wittier and sweeter. In Scena's…
The eagerly anticipated Women's Voices Theatre Festival kicked off with the opening of Longacre Lea's production of two world-premiere one-acts, which the company collectively dubs #DeathPar…
The authenticity and specificity of Katie Sullivan’s scenic and properties design for One in the Chamber could qualify it as a character in this engrossing new play by Marja-Lewis Ryan…
Dear Dear Evan Hansen, I know it might sound odd, but this is a love letter to a musical. I saw you for the first time in my life last night, and I knew right away I had to write you to tell…
Stephen Sondheim would do well to watch his back. Pallas Theatre Collective has just mounted a new musical, code name: Cynthia, that is just as smart and pointed in its book and lyrics and j…
When I, a longtime theater buff, moved to DC nearly a dozen years ago, I discovered something weird: The Metro DC theater scene is utterly confusing to anyone who doesn't already know their …
Playwright Isa Seyran has told forthrightly the origin story of Brothel: Reading about the extreme gender imbalance of men to women in North Dakota resulting from an oil boom thanks to frack…
As a medium for understanding what has been going on in the Israel-occupied territories, the art of theater can do something that other media cannot. Theater can narrate events and tell …
There are many delightful and poignant moments in mostly the VOICE: a black lesbian journey. This engaging autobiographical amalgam of poetry, original music, and storytelling"written and pe…
 A outstanding assembly of DC's African American LGBTQ artists converged to create Plot Twists…, a late addition to the DC Black Theatre Festival lineup. Conceived and produced by…
A theater troupe from Toronto brought this play to town for three performances only for the DC Black Theater Festival. Secrets of a Black Boy speaks with great honesty and artistry. It achie…
Madness has been dramatized in theater at least since the ancient Greeks. The mind come loose from its moorings, the persona altered, a terror deep in the self"whether in life or on stage, t…
"It's really important that we are able to hear our stories on the stage," said Marie Byrd Sproul as we talked about the show she directed"Out of Silence: Abortion Stories from the 1 in 3 Ca…
Two years ago I saw the touring production of The Book of Mormon at The Kennedy Center and was utterly blown away. I wrote a column at the time about the profound content of The Book of Morm…
The theater is no a stranger to the wounds of war. Countless plays and performance pieces have opened our hearts and minds to that which is unhealed and raw, to that which persists as pain a…
A hit Broadway comedy, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, rounds out Theater J's 2014"2015 season in a production smartly directed by Eleanor Holdridge. Written in a mainstream mode by Cha…
Update on 6/6/15: A near-capacity crowd gathered in the 9:30 Club Friday night, June 5, 2015"not standing in wait for a band to come on but seated in folding chairs for an evening of storyte…
Round House Theatre just opened a stunningly good production of NSFW directed by Meredith McDonough. The script by British playwright Lucy Kirkwood is a marvel in itself, because it is a …
Updated 6/1/5: Before seeing Faction of Fools’ Commedia dell'arte interpretation of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in full production (I’d previously seen it in a worksho…
You might think a suicide pact among losers who meet on line would not be a terribly good premise for a warmhearted comedy"much less a noir one à la Martin McDonaugh. You might assume the…
The gaunt and haunted figure of Franz Kafka obsessed the renowned Polish poet, novelist, and dramatist Tadeusz Różewicz (1921-2014). His two-act play The Trap"part expressionisti…